The Swedish company MTG announced the sale of its share in the media holding, and the CTC Media stated the end of restructuring.
The Modern Times Group (MTG) announced the completion of selling its share of 38% in the media holding CTC Media. As stated on the company’s official website, the total payout amount was USD 123 million.
The proceeds will be allocated to pay off MTG’s debts and to finance the Group’s digital content production.
The CTC Media, in turn, officially announced the termination of its reorganization process. USD 238.9 billion will be divided among shareholders (2.05 dollars per share). We shall recall that 25.4% of shares formerly owned by Yuri Kovalchuk’s Telcrest registered in Cyprus were bought out last year by the Russian state bank VTB.
It is to be recalled that the Russian government approved amendments to the Law “On Mass Media”, which limited the foreign ownership of any TV channel, newspaper or radio station up to 20% of shares. The CTC Media initially requested the State Duma to make an exception for media companies, and later on to postpone that provision at all.
In March last year, however, MTG announced its eagerness to sell its share. To do it, the CTC Media was initially required to close the “CTC Media Inc.” with US registration, and then to make the “CTC Investments”, set up in Russia, the holding’s head business unit. In July, the media holding UTV stated its willingness to purchase 75% of the media holding for USD 200 million. Later on, Mediasat reported that the two companies signed a purchase and sale agreement. In mid-December last year, the government allowed the UTV Holding to buy out the share of the CTC Media. The deal was completed at the end of 2015.
